One Day Too Late (When You Let Your Heart Win)
by TwoMoon'sLite
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is the master of his mind and body. That is, he was, until his actions and reluctance to let any question go unanswered almost cost him the one person who really matters. Now he'll learn what happens when you let your heart win. T for character death, excessive use of a water-retaining wall, reference to suicide. Angst and sadness. Johnlock and Brotherly Mycroft.


**Hello, guys! SO this is the first complete Johnlock fic I've written alone. Sorry about not updating my other stories, but I have been writing collabs with my Sherlock beta.I got this idea earlier and I wanted to give it to y'all. Have some virtual tissues, as you will need them.**

**A big thanks and shout out to my beta for all things Sherlock: littleblackneko!**

**DISCLAIMER:**** I own Nothing! Except maybe Sherlock II... BBC owns the descriptions for everything, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owns the names (although I don't know if he has Sherlock's middle name copywrited...) The Title is not even mine. The first part is a SKillet SOng **_and the second part is a line from a Paramore song._

* * *

_Today I'm gonna try a little harder_  
_Gonna make every minute last longer_  
_Gonna learn to forgive and forget_  
_'Cause we don't have long, gonna make the most of it_

_Today I'm gonna love my enemies_  
_Reach out to somebody who needs me_  
_Make a change, make the world a better place_  
_'Cause tomorrow could be one day too late_  
_One day too late_  
_One day too late_

-Skillet,_ One Day Too Late_

* * *

"John!"

His eyelids fluttered. _Damn Baskerville, damn Mycroft_. I slapped my companion's cheek again.

"John, you idiot. Wake. Up."

"Sherlock?" His eyelids raised a fraction; just enough so I could be assured his blue eyes still held their crystalline quality.

"John! Oh, John, nice John, kind John." I breathed a sigh of relief. John had suddenly collapsed naught but an hour after our return from Baskerville. A quick deduction had seen that John had been drugged a short while before he collapsed.

"Sherlock, what happened?"

_Unnecessary worry may cause a relapse_. "Nothing, John. You zoned out."

"Oh. Sorry, mate."

"It's quite alright, John. Why don't you take a seat? I'll make tea."

John laughed, a strange sound, made shrill by the drugs. It made my chest constrict at the reminder that I had almost lost John. My John, my blogger and faithful friend. My only friend. "Oh no, I'm going to make tea. You suck at it."

"John, please just…. Just sit." I closed my eyes. _Damned emotions_. I silently begged John to listen.

"Alright….." He took a seat in the chair we both had wordlessly dubbed his.

I made tea quietly, or as quietly as I could, being that my hands were shaking. I couldn't stop them. My body was failing me. But I was Sherlock Holmes, master of my mind and my transport. I concentrated hard, and stilled my hands. A smile hid my inner turmoil as I handed John his cup, prepared as he always took it.

John's brow creased. "Okay, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing's wrong John."

"Don't give me that. I can read you."

"John, are you okay?"

He jumped back a little. "Yeah, I'm fine.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Sherlock I'm fine." He studied me for a moment, then his eyes widened with remembrance. "Damnit, Sherlock. Why didn't you tell me you knew I was drugged?"

"I didn't. Not until you collapsed. I didn't look."

John took a breath. He closed his eyes and ran his hands over his face.

"John?"

"What, Sherlock?"

"Are you okay?"

"Fine, Sherlock. Fine. What's with the twenty questions?"

"Just checking."

"I could have died."

"Yes."

"And you aren't mad?"

"I am."

"Why aren't you yelling?"

"Would you like me to?"

"It would assure me I'm not dreaming."

"Fine. John, you bloody idiot, you almost died. Then what would I have done?" I said angrily.

"Get a new flat mate?"

I glared at him. "No."

"No? Oh come off it, you would have replaced me like the others."

I got up, leaning over him for a moment as I muttered, "You can't replace someone you love, John." Then I stood and went to pick up my violin.

That was when John started laughing.

"What is so funny?"

"You."

"Me? I was not being funny."

"Oh come on, Sherlock. We both know that this is a dream, or some drug-induced hallucination."

"John, I was not kidding."

John just laughed and laughed. I felt a large twinge of pain, and could not help but twist my face momentarily.

"I wasn't joking, John."

"Sherlock, we both know you can't love. You're a machine."

On impulse, I grabbed my scarf, knotting it around my neck. I threw on my coat and turned up the coat collar.

"Where are you going?"

"Out." _Anywhere but here_. I would not endure these insults. Even drugged, John still had a grasp on his mind, on his heart.

"Alright. See you when I wake up."

I flew out the door, all dark curls and pale skin. I walked for hours, deep in thought, about John, my feelings, and John's words, before I realized I was being trailed by a black car. _Mycroft_. Under normal circumstances, I would be outraged. But these were not normal circumstances, and I was relieved. I walked up to the car, opened the door, and climbed in.

Mycroft himself met me at the car's destination, our childhood home, now Mycroft's. He led me inside and asked no questions until we were each seated on a plush couch.

"Brother, to what do I owe this visit?"

I remained quiet, opting to lie down. I curled in on myself, facing my brother.

"Sherlock? Is everything alright?" His voice has lost all iciness, and sounded like when we were but boys. When our parents had died, Mycroft took my upbringing as his own responsibility. There was no hint of today's Ice Man.

"I told John I loved him."

"You…... what?"

"And he laughed."

"Oh, Sherlock." A hand came to rest between my shoulder blades. "Sherlock, I am so sorry."

"Myc, why did he laugh?"

"I don't know, Sherlock. Maybe it was because the idea of you loving anyone is ridiculous to him."

Tears blurred my vision as I quickly lost control. I didn't even care anymore.

"Oh, Sherly," Mycroft quietly said, "don't cry."

"I can't help it. I don't want to."

I cried openly, an act I hadn't committed in years. 26 years, 7 months, 27 days, 19 hours, 33 minutes and 45 seconds, to be exact. Mycroft comforted me, the way he did when the death of our mother had finally hit home.

We were no longer the Ice Man and the Virgin, no. In that moment we were just Mycroft Gladstone and Sherlock Oliver Holmes.

The Holmes boys, orphaned at 8 and 15 years old.

* * *

John looked down at his mobile. I saw him exit his cab and step onto the street across from St. Bart's hospital, where I stood on the roof. "Hello?" John's voice rang clear through my phone.

"John."

"Hey, Sherlock, you okay?"

"Turn around and walk back the way you came now," I ordered. He needed to see me at just the right angle, but I had to obstruct the sniper's view a little.

"No, I'm coming in."

"Just do as I ask. Please," I begged. If John came in, I would not be able to do it, I would not save them.

John turned back. "Where?"

I waited and watched as John made his way to where he needed to be, albeit slowly and wandering_. _"Stop there."

He stopped. "Sherlock?" Oh God, I was worrying him.

"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."

John looked up, and for a second I think we must have locked eyes. "Oh God."

I started to speak. "I ... I ... I can't come down, so we'll ... we'll just have to do it like this."

"What's going on?" John asked, clearly anxious.

"An apology. It's all true." I lied. If I was going to die, I was going to make sure my love would not be hurt.

"Wh-what?"

"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty." I quickly stole a look to my enemy's dead body, which lay behind me draining all of Moriarty's blood onto the roof via a freshly-made hole in his head. I returned my gaze to John.

"Why are you saying this?"

_"_I'm a fake," I said, my voice cracking.

"Sherlock ..."

"The newspapers were right all along," The tears that I refused to let come made their appearance in my voice, "I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly ... in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."

"Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met ... the _first time we met_, you knew all about my sister, right?" John, ever-loyal John, still trying to defend me.

"Nobody could be that clever."

"_You_ could."

I laughed, as the compliment was wasted. I was jumping off this roof, whether in John's good graces or not. "I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you," I sniffled, crying a little, "It's a trick. Just a magic trick."

It looked to me like John was shaking his head._ "_No. All right, stop it now," he begged. My blogger began to walk to the hospital's entrance.

"No, stay _exactly_ where you are. Don't move," I ordered.

John stopped immediately and raised a hand to me. "All right," he agreed.

I reached a hand out to him, my John, my lovely John. "Keep your eyes fixed on me," I became frantic; the sniper would shoot any moment. "Please, will you do this for me?"

"Do what?"

"This phone call – it's, err ... it's my note. It's what people do, don't they – leave a note?"

John shook his head. His phone momentarily left his head, but soon his voice was back, shakily, but it gave me strength anyways. "Leave a note when?" "Goodbye, John." John shook his head again. "No. Don't."

"I have to John. There is nothing here for me anymore. Not now that the truth is out."

"Me. What about me, Sherlock?"

I laughed. "You? John…. Sweet John. I have loved you for a while. I told you, and you laughed. I can't go on knowing that my feelings aren't returned and that everyone knows I'm a fake."

"What? Sherlock! Sherlock Oliver Holmes, I love you, you idiot. Don't do this to me."

"Too little, too late, John." I gazed at him, then flung my phone backwards and stepped onto the edge.

John screamed below me. "No. _SHERLOCK!"_

I spread my arms out and took a breath, my coat flying around me. I fell forward, knowing what awaited me. My last thought was a goodbye to my almost lover, my blogger, my John.

"Sher..."

* * *

Years later, in a small cemetery in London, an aged man and a young boy walked the path. They walked, the man solemn and the boy ignorantly curious, to a tall weeping willow tree, under which sat a dark gravestone.

The man, his dull blue eyes glassy with tears, produced a bouquet of black roses. He laid them on the headstone. The boy let go of the man's hand to attempt to climb the tree.

The dull blonde-haired man called out to the youngster, "Sherlock Oliver Watson, get down from there!"

"Yes, Dah." Sherlock crawled down and walked to his father.

"Sherlock, do you know what that says?" he asked, pointing to the headstone.

"Sherlock Holmes. Hey wait! Who's that?"

"That, my boy, is the name of my best friend, and the man I named you after."

"Oh." Sherlock stared at the name.

"Would you like to know more about him?"

Crystalline blue eyes met their once-identical set. "Yes, yes!"

"Alright, let's walk back. I'm sure your Mom is wondering where we are. I'll tell you as we walk."

The boy nodded excitedly, golden hair flying about. They joined hands once again and went back the way they came.

"Well, Sherlock Holmes was many things. He was a genius, an arse, a gorgeous man, and most of all, he was brave. Nothing scared him, except feelings. One day, Sherlock met someone. Over time, they grew very close. They were the best of friends, and inseparable. But, Sherlock realized he liked this person as much more than a friend."

"Did he love them, Dad?"

"Oh yes, very much. But he was bloody awful at saying it. He tried his best though, even though it scared him. And, sadly, his love did not love him. So Sherlock grew sad. It was only at the end of his life that this person realized that they loved him too. But it was too late. Do you know what he died of?"

"Uncle Greg says he killed himself."

"Oh yes, I suppose he did, in a literal sense. But what Sherlock Oliver Holmes really died of was a broken heart, one he never even knew he had."

* * *

_That's what you get when you let your heart win, whoa.  
That's what you get when you let your heart win, whoa.  
I drowned out all my sense with the sound of its beating (beating)  
And that's what you get when you let your heart win, whoa._

_-Paramore, That's What You Get_

* * *

**Please don't kill me! (Although you have full right to, especially my poor beta!)**

**Pretty Pretty Please Review.**

**A virtual hedgehog to anyone who reviews!**

**~TwoMoon'sLite~**


End file.
